Road test: 2005 Honda Ridgeline

Road test: 2005 Honda Ridgeline

byDavid Booth | August 10, 2011

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2005 Honda RidgelineHandout

Honda needs some street credibility.

There’s little doubt that its new Ridgeline, the first pickup with unibody construction, will handle better, ride more comfortably and get better gas mileage than its archaic body-on-frame competition. But it won’t matter a bit if consumers don’t believe it’s a real truck.

That’s why we’re bounding hill over dale in the woods somewhere west of sunny San Diego and why, later in the day, we’re heading to Qualcomm Stadium, home of the San Diego Chargers, for a tow-off between a Ford F-150 and the upstart Honda.

The reason for Honda’s obsession to prove that the Ridgeline is a real truck is simple. It’s breaking the same ground crossovers did when they began revolutionizing the sport utility segment a decade ago by eschewing the pickup’s traditional body-on-frame construction and building the Ridgeline on a unibody chassis. That’s the same engineering underneath the skin of virtually every sedan, sports coupe and most crossover SUVs. But until now it’s been judged too pansy for pickup truck use.

That’s the reason Honda is so hell-bent on proving that the Ridgeline is indeed as mucho macho as any other compact pickup. Unibody construction may indeed offer many advantages — better bending and torsional rigidity, superior handling and a smoother ride — over traditional body-on-frame construction.

But without those huge steel frame rails common to traditional pickups and SUVs, load carrying capacity and towing ability is severely compromised. All those crossover SUVs like Ford’s Escape, Toyota‘s RAV4 and yes, even Honda’s Pilot, may look indeed manly enough but they can’t tow nearly as heavy a load as a traditional SUV.

Honda’s solution to this dilemma is ingenious. They simply built boxed frame rails and seven crossmembers right into the Ridgeline’s unibody sheet metal. That, says Honda, is enough to let the Ridgeline cope with a 705-kilogram (1,500-pound) total payload, a number Honda claims is superior to all other subcompact pickups. It’ll also tow a 2,268-kg (5,000-lb.) trailer, large enough to accommodate 84 per cent of all truck owners’ needs, says Honda.

Indeed, in matching the V6-powered Ridgeline against a 5.4-litre, V8-powered F-150, Honda’s first pickup acquitted itself quite well. Oh, it didn’t beat the F-150, which accelerated to 65 kilometres an hour in 11.5 seconds while towing that 2,268-kilo trailer. But, at only 1.5 seconds behind the full-sized Ford, the Ridgeline proved there’s some serious moxie behind its 3.5-litre single overhead camshaft six.

Two hundred and fifty-five horsepower worth of moxie, to be precise. Even if the Ridgeline doesn’t send sports cars scurrying for cover, it’s as quick as most SUVs and more sprightly than the V6-powered compact pickups that Honda brought along for comparison purposes.

It’s also much quieter. Inside the cabin, cruising California’s coast at 140 km/h, the Ridgeline is as quiet as a Lexus. Wind noise is almost nonexistent and tire whine, common to many pickups, very subdued.

A large portion of the credit must go to the unibody construction, which Honda claims is as much as 20 times, yes 20 times, as stiff in torsion as its competitors. And that means the squeaks, rattles and thrumming caused by trim bits sliding up against metal is eliminated. Throw in touches like aerodynamically superior mirrors and better sealing around the windshield and you have the quietest truck in the business.

The other benefit of a taut chassis, of course, is superior ride and handling. In the Ridgeline’s case, Honda has erred on the side of handling with fairly taut suspension calibration. Despite being

independently suspended at all four corners, the Ridgeline nonetheless has a fairly stiff ride. Not as jarring as a heavy-duty pickup but certainly not as coddling as a luxury sedan, or a typical SUV for that matter.

But it does handle well. Body roll is well contained, even when loaded with the 500 kilograms of landscaper stones that Honda loaded into the bed as ballast. And certainly better than the Dodge Dakota they provided as competition. The brakes are up to the job as well, with 320-millimetre discs up front and 330-mm versions out back, all of which are controlled by a state-of-the-art anti-lock system.

The only fly in the ointment is that the steering wheel requires too much movement to initiate turns, especially at low speeds. The effort required is well calibrated but the 18.5:1 steering ratio isn’t quick enough. I found that turns that normally required but a quarter-turn of the wheel required almost 180 degrees of rotation in the Ridgeline and occasionally found myself underestimating how much steering was required for sharper corners.

Honda makes much of the Ridgeline’s unique in-bed storage compartment as quite unique and useful. Hidden underneath the traditional (five-foot-long) pickup bed, the hidden cargo compartment is large enough to stow a large cooler and is water-tight as well.

Inside, there’s plenty more stowaway space beneath the rear seats and an ingenious centre console that has an upper layer for the small stuff and a large bin beneath for CDs and such.

As is becoming the trend in pickups, the Ridgeline’s dashboard looks as integrated as any sedan’s. It might be not be as luxurious as the new F-150’s, but it is quite appealing.

Even base LX versions get air conditioning and a CD player, not to mention front air bags, side air curtains (with roll-over protection) and LATCH child-seat tethers for all three positions in the rear seat.

The one thing that may stop Honda from overrunning the entire compact pickup segment will be the price. The base LX will start around $35,000. If you want heated leather seats, a six-disc CD player, dual zone automatic climate control and Homelink garage door opener, you’ll have to opt for the EX-L, which may cost as much as $41,000. And the full-zoot version, the EX-L Navi, which adds a moonroof and a DVD-based navigation system, won’t offer much change from $45,000.

Pricing is probably the only reason that Honda’s ambition for the Ridgeline is a modest 3,500 units a year in Canada.

This report is based on a presentation by the manufacturer, which paid the freelance writer’s travel costs.